Ironman UK Results Analysis

After its inaugural event's average finish time of 13:01 in 2010 placed Ironman UK, Bolton, as one of RunTri's toughest Ironman events, the 2011 edition was substantially faster, with a 12:36 average finish time. Dramatically improved times were seen across most age groups.

Breaking down the gains: the swim, at 1:11, was 2 minutes faster; the bike at 6:50 was 12 minutes faster; and the run, at 4:17, was 13 minutes faster.

For some reason, the run split seems too good to be true. A large number of runners went sub-3 hours (see red circled area below), more than we'd expect, particularly after lightning fast bike times on a very tough course.

As a reference, we did the same analysis on Ironman UK's bike and run splits for 2010; substantially fewer ran sub-3. Did Ironman UK have a notably high number of run specialists this year?